Finalist for The QSPELL Prize for Fiction in 1990

Vittorio doesn’t understand why the neighbours disapprove of his mother, but suspects it has something to do with the man she was with on the morning she was bitten by the snake. But it becomes clear that it is Cristina’s independence of mind and rejection of superstition that offend against peasant values in this remote village in post-war Italy. Can Cristina and Vittorio take the escape route from poverty and ignorance which is offered by the semi-mythical wealth and freedom of North America?